


Carol of the Woods

by oberon2016



Series: Carol of the Woods [1]
Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: F/F, carol au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-23 12:49:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8328595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oberon2016/pseuds/oberon2016
Summary: AU of Carol (2016), Middle Ages, Queen and Birdcatcher





	1. Out of the Woods

She has a gift for birds, for finding them, catching them. She loves the feathers, that burst of flight, that swoop between the mottled canopy and the sparkling river. It is an impossible gift, for she is a creature bound to the earth – there must be bread, warmth and shelter for the cold nights, and tools to hold, and cut, and carry. So she spreads a gossamer net between the low lying branches in a grove of birches and picks her way cautiously through the thicket. Her features are sharp and fine – avian, and her eyes are a forest green. She is a birdcatcher, sent into the woods for the King’s pleasure. Her father had taught her this trade, her father from the east. Long dead. Of her mother, there is not a word. 

Her eyes flit across the dappled leaves, ever watchful. She shrugs. The contraption on her back, held by the straps, seems precariously frail, a cage of twisted bark and wire.

She steps carefully as she approaches yesterday’s net, sets the cage against the fallen boughs at the foot of the willow. There, in the corner of the mesh, struggles a golden breasted wonder, wings spread, a tiny, curled foot caught in the thread – such beauty, it would seem a sin to cage it. Gently, she folds her hands around the bird, feels in her palms the wild, frenetic heart. She grasps, not too tightly, but enough to hold the pulse of regret and sorrow. She slips the creature into her cage and watches as the bird hops, wings flapping, onto a perch. She allows herself a sigh of relief: there is no injury then. Roughly, she pulls on her padded vest, and the bird-beak hat, to hide from prying eyes, and slips on the straps of the cage, doubly so, to cover her chest. There. Now she can go into town.

They will whisper about this stranger, this birdcatcher but the King’s gold is good for provisions, some flour, and eggs, and tin to work into the wire. Her hut, nestled in the wood, is so small that it has never drawn any attention from straying townsfolk, indeed, if any have ever wandered so deep into this great forest. 

Her solitude is perfection. 

In town, her breath draws shorter. She does not like the narrow streets, the stench of the gutters, there are too many eyes, and wagging tongues. At the castle’s great door she knocks loudly, the dark oak scored by the passage of many hands. She can hear the scrapes from the kitchen, feel the wash of pungent steam from the scullery. On any other day, the jovial Stewart would drop the coins into her small hands, but today is different. Today the Stewart wears a frown, and roughly knocks her shoulder, pushing her to the hallway, to the court, for she has been called before the Queen. Fear twists, low in her belly. With a clumsy shove, she is thrust alone into the vestibule of the Tower, the realm of the Queen. What does she know of this creature? She knows that if there are Queens, then there are pawns, and the corruption of bishops with the endgame of conquest. She waits. Ornate tapestries hang from iron rods. The iron sets her jaw; she can taste the bite in the air, like blood, an unsheathed sword.

The bird, on its perch, sings.

We are the same, she realizes, caught and caged.

The door to vestibule opens and a dark cloak enters, how it cascades like a waterfall of the richest burgundy, a thick, flowing fabric, an embrace like velvet.

A white hand holds an emerald green glove, rises to pull back the hooded cloak. The birdcatcher’s gaze falls to the floor. But at a glance she can see the delicate bones of the wrist, fingers sculpted, as if out of the finest marble. She is prickled by a certain curiosity, a curiosity she distrusts. The hood has fallen and the Queen, in her iron red, her arm raised, how she holds the only light, her golden hair curling about her neck, her leonine face, and eyes as blue as ice, as sky. 

The birdcatcher gasps, dazzled. Her Queen. She understands this now, how the lightness dances in her eyes, her knees buckling, the sudden tilt of the world. Her chest clutches, her heart’s rapture in a cage, as she thinks of gilded wings, cradled in a fist.

The Queen, how her glance turns grey-eyed, mercurial: she stands as the other bows, her regality etched in shadow. Her edges, a blade, cuts like glass, like slate. A sharpness defines her, her eyes, stormy, a depth that is vast, impenetrable. But there is a glimmer, a shard; could it be loneliness?

The bird in the cage. A flutter and flare.

“You come from the woods.” It is not a question. She is here at the Queen’s pleasure. Her voice is mellifluous, as thick as honey, her bright lips, vermillion.

The birdcatcher nods. The air is close, too close, heavy with the scent of floral petals. 

“Can you speak?”

The birdcatcher knows that the Queen will not ask again. Another moment and she will be free, released from this Tower, into her solitude, into her life. The birdcatcher raises her head. She shivers and grapples with the balance, of fire and of wood.

“You… are magnificent.”

The Queen smiles, like burst of flight, like a perpetual sunrise that draws up all the heavens. She slaps her gloves in one hand, and then reaches, as if to clasp the beak mask, to reveal the birdcatcher, but no, she unclasps the hinge of the cage and the golden wings burst into the air, darting from tapestry to tapestry, to there, the window, to the unfettered air.

“Walk with me.” The Queen takes the birdcatcher’s hand.


	2. The Tower

The birdcatcher knows the woods, the cold, clear streams and the grassy plains that race towards the mountains. She knows the songs of the meadow, that lazy, indolent buzz of insects drawn to the sweet nectar, the vibrant blossoms that play with the wind. The footfalls of deer, the scattering of grouse fowl, the scampering traces of winter hare. She is at home with the crackle of pine needles beneath her feet, the groan of river ice breaking in late winter. Alone, she is at peace.

But that hand. The Queen has taken her hand. 

The birdcatcher stumbles as the Queen leads her through the door, to the stairs of the Tower. The steps spiral, dust motes dancing in the beams of sunlight that fall through the narrow balistraria, up and up, this dizzying ascent, a passage, a tunnel skyward. She sees the Queen in fragments; strands of hair, honey-rich, full lips in the turn of her glance, a hand guiding her forward. The birdcatcher holds a shallow breath in her chest and heat rises into her fevered cheeks. It is her mask, yes, and the heat of the climb, how the stiff vellum itches but she dare not take it off.

At the top of the stairs, the Queen asks kindly, “Are you still with me?”

The birdcatcher can only nod.

The doors of black oak swing open to a great hearth, to a table laden with goblets and victuals. A woven tapestry of autumn leaves hangs against the weathered stone, edged with barathea, and a veil of crimson curtains frame the iron doors of the far wall. By the largest window, a strange apparatus points to the east, a hollow tube that anchors a prism of glass. Has it to do with stars? She does not know the name of it, this instrument that closes the distances, that enhances the sight.

The Queen has followed her gaze. She points. “Your forest.”

The birdcatcher gapes. Has she seen her then? Is this why she has been summoned? From the window, she can see how far the Tower lies from the Keep, the line of battlements, the squat, square Abbey. Is the Tower a prison then?

“The King?” she manages to croak out.

“He resides in the Keep, near the mews. He is very fond of his falcons,” she says, drily.

So she is the damsel in the Tower, the birdcatcher thinks. “I’m sorry.”

“There is no need.” The Queen traces the lines in the tablecloth, the thread of cassimere. “Your mask -“ 

The birdcatcher realizes her blunder and with one swift movement, the beak is off, her hair tumbling. She blinks and the Queen’s hand is there, stroking back the rumpled hair from her eyes. She stiffens, a touch to turn her to stone, no, to an aching flesh and bone. 

“You are a pretty one,” the Queen murmurs. “It seems a shame to hide it.”

The birdcatcher blushes.

The Queens smiles, wistful. “Sensitive too.”

A bird alights on the window sill. Her golden-breasted glory. With a twitter, it hops to the Queen’s open hand, the sprinkle of millet seeds.

“You –“ the birdcatcher starts.

“One has amusements. For idle days.”

“Am I an amusement?” The birdcatcher stares at her feet. She is the Queen, the birdcatcher reminds herself. “If it pleases you.”

“You are more a question. A curiosity.”

“I… am more like the birds,” she struggles for the word, “But not those who flock or gaggle.”

“Yes,” the Queen nods, “the solitary ones, the ones who pine and sorrow.” 

When the birdcatcher meets her gaze, there is no mockery there. Yet for a moment, the birdcatcher wonders. The Queen’s voice, low with a cadence of longing – was it for her? Or was this an understanding, a beacon from one solitude to another, a leap of fellowship and nothing more.

For what more could it be?

There is a call from the stairwell, and the Queen steps back, startled. The trample of heavy boots grows louder until the black oak doors swing open with a harsh scrape. Two guards stand by the threshold; and a thick set man barrels through.

It is the King.


	3. The Chamber

There is no hint of divinity about him. He may be a king but he is still just a man.

The birdcatcher can see the breadth of his shoulders beneath the belt of winter wolves. His dark hair and dark eyes are a stark contrast to the Queen. His Queen. In the birdcatcher’s eyes it seems wrong that she should yield to his command, to any command, yet she obeys when he stretches out his hand. She should remain sovereign to herself.

The birdcatcher bows. No, she does not like him at all.

His glance barely flickers to her and so the Queen nods her to the crimson curtains, to the iron doors.

The birdcatcher retreats. Even as the thick doors muffle the King’s words, her eyes are drawn to the Queen’s chamber, the canopy bed, the wooden chest, the long table by the window. There, her brushes, small crystal vials, a bowl of water sprinkled with rose petals.

The birdcatcher grasps the brush, holds the weight of the rosewood handle. Her brush. She rakes the prickles against her palm. The brush that has stroked through her Queen’s hair – this intimacy entralls her, ripples down into her belly and beyond, a shiver that makes her knees weak. In one swift movement she draws out the silken threads stranded in the bristles and tucks them into her inner pocket, hidden, beside her breast. 

Now she is a thief. Another tally to her list of sins. She throws herself on the bed. Another trespass. 

A feather floats in the air. How soft the mattress! The birdcatcher gazes at the canopy, the celure of damask, and thinks of her own scant woollens. As she rolls, she inhales the delicate scent of petals, honeysuckle and a deeper essence that stirs her to the core.

The King sleeps in the Keep. He does not share her bed. The very thought thrills her.

In the corner hangs a long mirror. The birdcatcher has never seen such a thing. She sees herself for the first time, not as the reflection of the water on the glassy pond, but here, as the Queen has seen her. She stands, a small, shrivelled thing, dirt smudged on her chin, short, uneven hair tumbled, a mouse-brown. Her vest is frayed, her rough cambric pants patched with faded, rusted wool. 

Shame blossoms on her cheeks. Quickly, she smooths out her imprint on the bed, her rough hands against the silken cloth. Desecration. 

The voices from the other room pierce through the iron. She can hear shouts, his bellow, her anger. The words are crashing but the birdcatcher listens: talk of war and alliances, their daughter is to be sent to another kingdom. He storms out the door, slamming the heavy oak behind him and the trampling of the guards fade away.

Cautiously the birdcatcher slips into the room. Her Queen stands by the table, as if on a high promontory. Desolate. There is ice. There is fire. She raises a goblet, hand shaking, and drains the cup.

Empty.

She hurls the goblet into the hearth.

The birdcatcher gasps, in spite of herself.

The Queen twists, her stare burning into the birdcatcher’s soul. Yes, she is a small, shrivelled thing. The Queen’s voice cuts deeper than any blade. “Do not dare pity me.”

The birdcatcher flies from the Tower.


	4. The Retreat

The birdcatcher crashes through the bramble, the thorns tearing at her legs. She runs, welcoming the lashes of the thicket, a switch against her cheek as she ducks below a twisting bough. In reckless motion, she hurls herself deeper and deeper into the forest, away from the Tower, the town. Her lungs burn, oh her tears, the blur of leaf and green, her hand against the rough bark, only to push away, away. Her foot hooks on a snarl of roots and she tumbles.

She lands, like a blow, yet the shock of it is welcome. She wants so much for the earth to swallow her, come heaven, and hell, and damnation too. She sobs, a blubbering lament, her humiliation complete. She rubs her face into the earth, her fingers digging into the duff. 

Finally she sleeps.

When she wakes, she shivers against the morning dew, with a moment’s confusion before the events of the day rush back to her. She has slept the entire night in the wood. As she rises, she feels the stiffness of her limbs, the sting where the branches had whipped her face, the bruise on the heel of her palm when she had fallen.

A dull ache in her chest.

She makes her way to her hut, feels a small relief at the sight of the moss covered rock cobbled out of the ridge. Her home, behind a copse of ash, is carved out of a natural hollow, hidden by a tangle of cascading vine. Inside, she opens the shutters and sighs as the light streams in. She sees her sparse room, the straw bed, the barrel table and her red clay hearth – and imagines that the Queen would think this a hovel.

No, she will not dwell on her. That last look. No.

Yet as she opens her cupboard, she thinks of how grey the world seems, how small and mean. She rubs at the smear on her arm. She casts her mind back to the Queen’s hand, how she had held those long, tapered fingers, so delicate, yet strong, how strangely warm that –

No.

With three quick strides, she is out the door and running to the river. She sits by her favourite stump and hugs her knees to her chest. Around her the woodland hums, the drone of bees and swaying petals. The sparkle of the water, as the forest holds a thousand shades of green, the light, an aurulent luster. Yet there is no joy in it. There is no joy in her.

Her stomach grumbles. She is hungry. That is it.

She wades into the river, checking the rocky weir until she reaches the fishing funnel. She spies the speckled trout and with one scoop she has it by the gills. There. She can hunt for herself and she needs no one. As she makes her way back, she checks her traps (empty), the patch by the clearing (three purple carrots, a clump of radish); the fish head she leaves by the stone slab, as always, for the wolves.

In her hut she places the trout in the fire, wrapped in pine bark. Her shoes are still wet from the dip in the weir, so she kicks them off, notes the hole by her toe; she will have to make new ones from the rabbit belts that hang across the ceiling. There is much to do.

She does not think of her at all.

In the early dusk of the evening she feels a curious ache, a twist below her stomach, a slickness between her thighs; it must be her monthly bleeding so she turns, clears her table and turns over the barrel. She heats the water from the cistern with the only pot she has bought from town (an exchange for a deer’s pelt, and a brace of grouse fowl from three winters past). The bath will only come up to her ankles but that is enough to wash the dirt from her bleeding. She pulls off her tunic, then her pants but there is no trace of menses. But the bath has been draw and she steps into the warm water. She thinks of the Queen’s looking glass as she wipes her face with a cloth. The Queen’s bath must be one of copper, not a half barrel flipped over as a table. She gazes down at her breasts. The Queen’s breasts…

The birdcatcher is not an innocent. She knows of the couplings between men and women. But her own body is a vast unknown wilderness. She wants but she cannot comprehend. She rises from the bath, the water dripping from her, enfolds herself in rough cambric. She will deny herself this, for the Queen cannot be… the Queen is in her Tower, and birdcatcher in the forest dark. They are worlds apart.

But the birdcatcher can dream.

In the morning, a golden breasted wonder chirps at her window. A simple note is tied to its leg, drawn in elegant script: _forgive me_.


	5. From the Meadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank your for all the comments! They really are inspiring!
> 
> The phrase "all the world is green" comes from the song - the Rosemary Standley version is the best.

In the meadow, the birdcatcher weaves a basket of tall grasses, desperate for distraction. Her eyes continually scan the edge of the forest, uneasy at the encroaching darkness. As the sun dips low on the horizon, she sees two riders on their horses: one in black, one in red. Two riders. She stands, uncertain. The red cloaked rider dismounts at a distance, slipping a bag from the horse’s saddle. Her Queen.  


The cloak in black remains. A nun, the birdcatcher realizes, her head covered by a wimple. Under her glance, she knows she has been inspected and found wanting. The nun’s voice is low and imperious, but not to her. “She’s young. Tell me you know what you are doing.”

The Queen murmurs a reply and hands the reins of her horse to her companion. With a reluctant nod, the nun turns back, towards town.

“She is the Abbess,” the Queen explains, as she comes to her, “an old friend.”

The birdcatcher cannot help but smile. She takes the Queen’s bag and waves toward the trees. “My home. It’s not… I mean… my Queen.”

The Queen stops, her hand alighting on the birdcatcher’s shoulder. “Let us dispense with titles. Let me be myself, at last. Carol.”

“Carol.” The birdcatcher beams. A bubble of joy rises in her throat. She swallows it.

  


Her hut glows with lamplight as the Queen crosses the threshold. The birdcatcher has spent the day frantically cleaning, sewing the pelts for the blanket that lies draped over the bed. Sprigs of lilac hang from the ceiling and she has thrown dried lavender in the hearth.

The Queen takes in the cozy room. “Perfect,” she says. She pushes back the hood of her cloak. Her golden hair is burnished by the glow of the fire, her blue eyes sparkling.

The birdcatcher feels the tightness in her chest, as if she cannot contain this happiness. She is here, she is here. It does not matter that her home is so crude and so small, that she herself is so shrivelled and self-contained. Her Queen fills the space, radiant, with the warmth of the sun. At her touch the stones on the mantle sparkle, the chair becomes a throne, the Queen transforms, she is full of possibilities, a hand that draws you forward, onward, into the uplifting air.

She sits on the bed, on the newly made pelt, her hand running through the russet fur.

The birdcatcher can barely breathe. Knees weak, she folds herself on a pillow of heather.

Slowly they speak of their days, then in a rush, of their lives. For the birdcatcher, of her childhood in an orphanage, then the years in the wood. At times her words falter but she surprises herself with her quiet hopes. She hears the undertow of longing in the Queen’s words, a path to some hidden place; it is as if the world has expanded with unspoken promises.

The fire crackles, flames dying low.

As the birdcatcher hands her a cup of cider. The Queen asks, “You do not like the town?”

She shakes her head. “In town, I must marry.”

Yes. They drink, their silence, an understanding between them.  


“Are you not lonely?” the Queen looks at the embers, flickering in the hearth.

“And your Tower?” the birdcatcher cannot help her question. She blushes, “Forgive me –“

“No, you are right.” The Queen sighs. “I have a daughter in tutelage and in the end, children are never your own. The King belongs to the realm, a stranger really, a bond to keep two kingdoms from warring. And so it has been from the beginning. We belong to no one and no one belongs to us.” She bows her head. In that moment there is such sadness that the birdcatcher would pluck the stars from the heavens, if only to make her smile.

The Queen continues, “You have this life. You are quite remarkable, do you know that? You’ve made your way in the world. You are beholden to nothing and no one. And what is a queen? An ornamentation, useless really. The greatest pawn, draped in silk and brocade.” She says this simply, without pity.

The birdcatcher sees the Queen, the endless days in the Tower with her spyglass, looking out at a world she cannot join. But she is here, now. And it dawns on the birdcatcher, with a kind of timid wonder, that the Queen could have been watching her.

“Carol?”

The Queen turns to her with the clearest eyes.

“My name is Therese,” she whispers, like a secret, like a gift. As if the birdcatcher were offering all of her soul, all of her heart.

The Queen, so close, whispers, “Ask me things. Please.”

The birdcatcher feels as if she is on a precipice, one step and she will take flight or fall. As if all of her life has led to this moment. “Can I kiss you?”

There is a leap in her eyes, as the Queen leans forward. She kisses her, at first a gentle brush of lips, almost chaste, a question, an exploration. As if to say _you are young, do you want?_ In that pause there is a moment of infinite tenderness _we can stop, this is not irrevocable, our path not set in stone_. But the birdcatcher kisses back, with a wild and devouring hunger, she feels a hand grasp the back of her head as she is pulled into soft lips, the smell of petals and the deeper scent of her. It is a falling, the sudden press of a body, warm, the tumble of fingers against her tunic, a knee grazing her own, all confusion. She tastes, a sweet cider, and salt and all the world is green.


	6. By Lamplight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I welcome comments. Hope you enjoy.

She asks for a kiss. A simple thing. She sees the Queen’s eyes fall to her lips, with a flash of what could almost be sorrow and for a moment she thinks that the Queen will turn away. She is young, far below her station – there are a million reasons why the Queen would refuse her. In that moment, the birdcatcher sees the glint of golden hair, the glow of lamplight on her cheeks, the redness of parted lips, and eyes, darkened by an impossible yearning. In this moment, the room is the world, the wonder and terror of it, the unbridled hope and inexorable loss.  
  
A kiss. A gentle thing.  
  
And yet, it leaps up inside her, that pull, that ache, she grasps for more, pressing forward, her own passion and desire, she does not quell it, her touch does not quench it, she tastes, as if to drink her in, this kiss, not to end, but to begin again, to always be beginning.  
  
It is her own hunger that she relishes.  
  
She is innocence itself.  
  
When the Queen pulls back, the birdcatcher feels the loss of her. The birdcatcher wants. She _craves_ yet there are no words. In one motion she pulls off her tunic and lies back on the bed. She watches as the Queen drinks her in, eyes darkening. She offers herself, this need, for the Queen to come to her, to desire her, to take what she has given.  
  
The Queen reaches for the lamp.  
  
“No. I want to see you.”  
  
A hesitation, then the Queen stands. She turns away, as if this act would abjure any weakness. The gown falls away. The long length of back, round bottom, she is naked, without any royal vestments. The birdcatcher gasps; there could be no greater beauty. With a twist, the Queen kneels on the bed, a hand drawing down the birdcatcher’s pants, a stroke along the thigh, over knees, the rough cambric pulled over ankles and off. The birdcatcher gazes at her Queen, gazing at her, how she _looks_ with a growing wonder, palm hovering over the birdcatcher’s chest, tentative, as if she would vanish at her touch.  
  
The birdcatcher trembles.  
  
The Queen kisses her and the birdcatcher feels the sliver of tongue, the probing nature of her, she wants to take her in, to hold her in this moment which is forever. Oh, to linger, to feel the press of breasts against her own but impatience is her undoing. She feels a caress on her neck against her pulse as their bodies slide in this convergence, the shock of hips against her own, a grinding, rocking motion. The birdcatcher would weep but the Queen’s lips are on her breasts, her skin aflame, a quivering passion. It is as if she has been flung outside of herself, outside of any world. When the Queen takes her nipple, there is a thrashing cry; her own. She feels the warmth and wetness and jolts as the Queen’s tongue rolls and swirls.  
  
The birdcatcher buckles and writhes. She will die. This rapture will consume her.  
  
The Queen slips lower, her kisses, her mouth is questing, and the birdcatcher arches, a shivering that dances upon her skin. With every caress the birdcatcher discovers the newness of her body, how she feels alive. Lower the Queen goes, to the softness of belly, the scoop of her hips, traversing her length with a blind hunger, seeking and exploring, lips, and tongue, the every searching kiss until the birdcatcher is found.  
  
“Therese,” her Queen whispers, honey-low and thick.  
  
She looks, her Queen between her parted legs. It shocks her, how she strokes the hair on her mound, how she savours, inhaling her hidden scent, how she stares, enchanted and enthralled. The birdcatcher swallows, uncertain of what is to come but she sees the Queen’s gaze, what could only be adoration, she watches as her Queen takes a breath before the plunge.  
  
A kiss. There.  
  
The birdcatcher cries out. She flings her arm over her face.  
  
Her tongue, her lips as she has never felt before, that raw devouring. She feels the build deep within her as her arms thrash, her hands desperate for a clasp, her hips chasing that mouth in a rhythm for more. The Queen’s hand reaches for her breast, the tease of nipple, that impertinent tug, a new madness of sensation. The birdcatcher weeps, riding the crest of feeling. It is too much, the Queen is voracious, too much to stop, too much to endure. Oh, she will shatter into a thousand pieces. It is as if all of her being is drawn into that mouth, an ache that is wrenched from between her legs and drawn into that sucking. Nothing has come before this moment, and nothing will follow.  
  
She feels a charge, as if lightning, a bolt to tear you asunder, an annihilating paroxysm, a blessed release.  
  
Earth bound, she falls back onto the bed. Yes, she has been found.  
  
The Queen takes her in her arms as she shivers.  
  
“My angel,” the Queen whispers as she strokes back her hair, “my angel.”


	7. Cinnamon and Saffron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments! They really do help!

The birdcatcher wakes, her body languid, as if her limbs are heavy with wine. She rubs her cheek against the pelt and knows that there had been no drink, not last night. She shifts her hips, feels the soreness between her legs. She had been drunk on more heady stuff.  
  
Naked, she lies beneath the Queen’s cloak. The hood still holds the scent of her.  
  
She sees the Queen by the table, captured by the morning light that streams through the open shutter. In her gown, she is no less regal as she places victuals on the cutting board. She seems contented and serene in this little house, a soft tune on her lips; she is herself, without imperial mien. Something in the birdcatcher’s heart flutters, a burst of joy followed by the edge of apprehension. She feels her own slickness, her yearning; she fears she asks too much.  
  
“Hello sleepyhead.”  
  
The birdcatcher’s happiness bubbles up and over. She cannot help but smile.  
  
The Queen comes to her, handing her a cup. “Drink.” She places the cutting board on the bed.  
  
As the birdcatcher raises herself on one elbow, she peers at the strange food.  
  
“These are dried cherries,” the Queen points to the crimson fruit, “and this cheese is from the monastery at Auvergne.”  
  
The birdcatcher glances, quizzically.  
  
The Queen points her bag next to the bed. “I did not get the chance to show you my gifts.” She pulls out glass jars, a small velvet pouch. “Cinnamon. Nutmeg. Guinea pepper. And saffron.”  
  
It is a small fortune in spices. The birdcatcher gapes. “But this is too much!“  
  
“This gives me pleasure. As you do.” The Queen looks down at the jars as she softens. Her voice rings with a sudden frailty, like a note sounded from a crystal cup, “You are precious to me.”  
  
The birdcatcher sits up, the cloak falling to her lap. The Queen’s eyes fall upon that body, on the red welts on her breast where she has marked her. “Do you think me cruel?”  
  
The birdcatcher holds her breath. The light in the room shifts, as if a hawk has flown across the window. With that, the birdcatcher knows. “How long do we have?”  
  
“I have told the King I am cloistered for a fortnight in the Abbey.”  
  
A fortnight, the birdcatcher thinks. Then she will make that last forever.  
  
She looks at her Queen, at her brilliant eyes. They shine with a fierce and hungry fervour. The Queen reaches out to stroke the birdcatcher’s cheek, as her eyes search for any trace of regret or hesitation. It is a quiet beseechment, a plea without words. The birdcatcher gasps as she feels a hand cup her mound and the Queen moans to find her wet. Their kisses press, urgent, rising to a desperate tempo. The birdcatcher’s tears fall, even as the Queen’s fingers sooth, caressing, drawing down her want. There is a quickening, a driving pulse. The Queen pulls her to the edge of the bed, and the birdcatcher, opening, feels the thrust, fingers deep within in, the movement like a rush of river, like a sweeping roll of tide. The shock of it bursts, a blinding flash behind her eyes. The sensation rides her, no, she is ridden, how she is pierced to her very core. Her cry cuts through the room, a keening wail, jagged with every stroke. Again and again, she rides that hand, until she can give no more.

  


The traps must be tended, so the birdcatcher leads the Queen towards the mountains. The Queen has left her gown behind: clothed in a light tunic and the birdcatcher’s old trousers that barely fall passed her knees.  
  
The birdcatcher shakes her head. This is wrong, wrong. “You should be in robes of velvet, and something silk.”  
  
“Tonight I will wear my cloak and nothing else. For you.”  
  
The birdcatcher blushes.  
  
The Queen throws back her head, her laughter filling the glen.  
  
Two rabbits. The Queen watches as the birdcatcher cleans them. The entrails she will place by the stone slab, she explains, for the wolves.  
  
“You feed the wolves?” the Queen asks, in surprise.  
  
“Yes, for they keep the villagers out. And the deer, too, would run rampant and strip the saplings bare, then the banks would be swept from the river.”  
  
The Queen gazes at the birdcatcher, at her furrowed brow as she resets the snare.  
  
At the weir, the birdcatcher shows her the funnel woven from river reeds, how she hooks the trout by the gills, up and out of the water. The Queen watches from the stump but the birdcatcher waves her in. Unsteadily the Queen wades into the stream. A grand fish lurks by the edge of the weir, by the large stones. Under the birdcatcher’s guidance, she grabs it, but too late, by the tail. She holds it as it struggles, flapping, splashing droplets and flinging slimy scale – and falls backwards, the cold water sluices up her tunic.  
  
There is no word for the look on the Queen’s face.  
  
The birdcatcher freezes, as if in horror. But slowly her shoulder’s shake, the ripples roll down and she clutches her belly, a small, snarking giggle. As the Queen rises from the pool, fists set on her hips, the water running off her, the birdcatcher is snorting, almost weeping, cramming her fist into the mouth. With one swift sweep the Queen snags her waist and pulls her into the stream.  
  
A shriek and laughter.  
  
In the meadow, they lie naked on the soft grasses, their clothes drying in the afternoon light. They have finally stopped shivering.  
  
Oh, green the forest and golden, the sun-kissed air.


	8. Falcon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!

As they walk back from the meadow, the birdcatcher points out the grouse fowl roosting amongst the spreading ferns, the tracks of the elusive martens. The green moss clings to the elms, the mushrooms in the hollows. How calm beneath the forest canopy! The Queen takes her hand and the birdcatcher thinks she has known no greater bliss.

“Is this common,” the birdcatcher asks, “between women?”

The Queen takes a moment. “Not as uncommon as people would think.”

“And if people were to know?”

The Queen’s voice is low. “They cannot know.”

 

The rabbit stew boils lightly in the pot, with carrots and onions from the clearing, a sprinkling of the Queen’s spices and, from the velvet pouch, a pinch of the prized Hanseatic salt. The birdcatcher takes the pot from the hearth, to cool on the table. The evening light wans, the darkness of the trees spiking against the swaths of sky mauve. A hoot owl calls from the copse of pine. As the birdcatcher lights the lamp, the Queen rummages through her bag and extracts a small round fruit.

“What is that?” the birdcatcher asks.

“An orange.” The Queen peels off the skin in one star shaped piece, the colour of the setting sun. She hands the skin to the birdcatcher, who tries to bite it.

“No,” the Queen laughs, “place it on the mantle, for the scent.” She tears the fruit in half and gives one to the birdcatcher.

A section comes free in the birdcatcher’s hand. “Look, they come in pieces!”

The Queen smiles. She pops one segment into the birdcatcher’s mouth. 

Mmmm. Tear drop pulp, sweet, with an edge of tartness. The birdcatcher’s eyebrows rise as she nods her head.

There is a rustle at the window as the golden breasted wonder darts in with a flap of wings, a missive wrapped around its leg. The Queen lays a sprig of millet on the sill and gently unfurls the note. “All is well at the Abbey,” she tells the birdcatcher, with a sigh of relief.

The bird twitters, as if in agreement.

The Queen again reaches for her bag and draws out a wooden rod, polished to a sheen. A flute. Almost shyly, she sits on the edge of the bed and begins a song, sweet, like the wind in the reeds.

“Carol,” the birdcatcher whispers, for her name is also a song. 

The notes fill the room, like wine through veins, stirring the heart. A lilt and a tremble, the music lifts and falls. It is an old Carolingian tune, from the court of Charlemagne, a troubadour’s lament of love lost. The birdcatcher can hear the sweetness in the sadness, like loon’s call at summer’s end.

“Here,” the Queen offers the instrument and she shows her how to place the embouchure. She wraps her arms around her birdcatcher, for the place of the pipe against the lower lip, how the fingers flutter over the holes, a breath to release the song.

The first note is but a sputter. 

The Queen laughs. The lips should be firmer, she explains, “like this,” and so she kisses her.

A moan from the birdcatcher. For is this not music as well?

Kisses go deeper, a seeking, a questing, but it is the birdcatcher who pushes the Queen firmly onto the bed. The Queen gives a look of surprise as the younger woman straddles her, as she pulls off the tunic, as if to say, _where are your royal vestments now?_ The birdcatcher reaches, her finger tracing the dark circle around the Queen’s nipple, the texture of skin, oh the pinkness of blush. She sees the Queen’s chest rise and fall, her breath, jagged, like the pulse that passes between them. She slinks down off the edge of the bed, pulling trousers to nakedness, to revelation. Yes, this is epiphany, the only god she knows; everything else is sacrilege. 

The Queen sits up, the birdcatcher at her feet. Supplicant and liege, their desire dances between them, to take and to give. Yet it is the birdcatcher’s lips that take in the breast, her hands that cup a creamy plumpness, her tongue that rolls a nipple hardened by want. And the Queen wants. Her back arches into a mouth, hand grasping, running through the birdcatcher’s silken hair, pulling her closer, pulling her in, as if to obliterate all boundaries between them. She wants with a keening lust, to be entered, and emptied and reborn.

Yet the birdcatcher fills her mouth with glory, she wishes to linger, her own need to savour, this hunger of skin. Oh, the Queen’s desire but the birdcatcher has desires of her own.

She stands and pulls off her clothes and lets the Queen stare. Exquisitely, achingly slowly she sits on her Queen as she pushes her down, grinding her wetness on her belly, leaning to whisper, “This is what you have made me.” She takes the Queen’s arms, pins her, and she thinks of how the Queen has taken her, her own begging need on that very first night. “Carol,” she chants, her tongue tracing her Queen’s ear, “Carol.” Her lips slope down to neck, tiny bites, stinging kisses. She explores, the trembling muscles of chest, the curves of breasts, she spends an eternity caressing those nipples, light stroke then sucking to the very edge of pain. How the Queen quivers, how the Queen shakes, the birdcatcher’s hands dance, a nip in the crook of elbow, a rake of nails on the side of her ribs, the Queen is hers and hers alone, to taste, to tease, the Queen, her banquet, her feast.

Again she pulls up and away. The air, so cool, rushes between them. That heavy scent.

“Carol,” she whispers. The nakedness of her.

The birdcatcher opens the Queen’s legs.

This is the mystery, the birdcatcher thinks, as she looks at her glistening wetness. How like lips, to taste, to kiss, that thatch of hair, like moss catching dew, oh to lay one’s head between those legs and dream of heaven. And there, that little bud, that hooded flower. The birdcatcher does not know the name of things but here she touches, in a language of her own. She looks up at the face of her Queen, those eyes, clear and deep, her chest rolling deep. Does she desire? The birdcatcher nuzzles her face into that gentle mound and hears a low moan.

Tiny kisses, sharp teeth, in the dip between leg and belly, and Queen cannot help it, she lifts her hips, an offering.

“Therese…”

The birdcatcher rubs her nose in those golden curls, to inhale that earthy musk. A finger to trace the edge of wet lips. A gentle tongue, the tiniest motion and she catches the sob of “Please.” She takes into her mouth those petals, that flower, she sucks and kisses and rolls, oh that wetness, the taste of her, like salted nectar, she will drink here forever.

She slides a finger in and almost weeps at the shudder, that primal cry. How, this warmth, that clutch of her as she spills out, a wave as she slips in again, and again, a churning motion. Her Queen, her hips are wild, rocking but the birdcatcher is so taken with the sight of her fingers, entering, pulling out the guttural music of groans and cries. How her fingers nestled so tightly, the wave of them releasing a chant, that building song of “Therese, Therese, Therese.” Her mouth descends, her fingers, a relentless plunge and retreat, she feels the pulse, the rising build as the Queen bears down, raw muscle and motion, she feels the lightning ripple, ecstatic, that burst of flight before release.

The birdcatcher catches her. Her Queen.

 

There are small miracles. Breathless, the birdcatcher lies, her head on her Queen’s heart; she can hear it beating.

 

In the morning they head to the meadow. The clouds have lumbered in, darkening, pooling at the horizon. The birdcatcher gazes at the sky; the storm will come soon enough. The traps have yielded four rabbits, so there will be enough bounty for days. Then they can linger, a morning’s embrace. “Morning dew,” the Queen had teased her, slipping her hand between the birdcatcher’s thighs. But today she must send a message to the Abbess. 

In the meadow, they release the golden breasted bird. They watch, as it flies, a soaring height. “What must it feel,” the Queen asks, “to be that free.” The birdcatcher does not know if the Queen asks this of her, or of the world. Before she turns away, she hears a gasp. The Queen points to the sky. Helpless, she watches as a falcon drops, grasping the golden wings in its talons. There is a glint on the claw. A silver band.

The King’s falcon.


	9. Fall

The falcon spirals up and away.

At first the birdcatcher cannot grasp the true import of what has occurred. The Queen’s ashen face, however, tells all.

“I must get to the Abbey.” 

The birdcatcher prickles at the panic in the Queen’s voice. She blinks in her confusion and turns to her but the Queen is already running back to the hut. The birdcatcher chases after her.

In the room the Queen frantically puts on her gown. The birdcatcher watches from the doorway. The Queen calls for her bag and the birdcatcher retrieves it from under the bed.

“I will come with –“ she begins.

“You must stay here. The Kingsmen may meet me at the gate. And if they see you –“

“Why?”

The Queen cries out, and it is her despair that stuns the birdcatcher; “The message says it all. If they find you, do you understand, do you know what they will do to you?” As if confronted by the depths of all consequences, the Queen shudders and faces her birdcatcher, those clear green eyes. Her innocence. The true horrors of the world have not destroyed that guilelessness. The Queen chokes, “I could not bear it.”

The birdcatcher looks baffled. How can everything be so suddenly flipped upside down?

“And you?” she worries.

“I am Queen.” Bitter, bitter.

She kisses her. “I will send word from the Abbess. But never, never come to the Tower. Do you understand?”

The birdcatcher nods, without comprehension. A kiss, deep and desperate, before the Queen whispers “Forgive me.” She sweeps the cloak around her like a shield.

She pushes the birdcatcher away and she is out the door.

The whirlwind, the birdcatcher thinks, and now she is gone.

 

The birdcatcher remembers her first bird, a kingfisher, with wings of iridescent blue. She had cast the net amongst the tall branches and the bird had tangled in the upper corner of the thread. Her father had warned her of casting too high but she was small and nimble. Climbing was nothing to her. And so she swung up the boughs, grasping the rough bark, until she reached, her fingers clasping the bird –

And fell

A falling that tumbled the world, her breath, gone, the shimmering green into rutilant hue, the light, the smack of the forest floor and time stretched out into endlessness. A falling.

The kingfisher in her hand, dead.

Yes, she had killed it, clutching in her panic, the fine bones snapping her in hand. Even the feathers were crushed. Young she was, and young she still is, and she had wondered what punishment for this?

 

The birdcatcher paces through the forest to the meadow, to the river. She cannot eat, so she leaves the rabbits for the wolves. That night she flings herself into bed, covers herself with the tunic and sleeps with the Queen’s scent upon her. Restless dreams, with a cruel awakening, an ache between her thighs. She waits for sunrise, then makes her way to the Abbey. At the gate she knocks. The gate opens to a metal grill. There stands the Abbess, in black, her dark eyes shining beneath her wimple.

“So you are the one who has been asking about taking vows,” she exclaims loudly. Too loudly. The birdcatcher, on edge, she realizes that there must be someone within hearing. “Did we not council patience? After all, a novitiate must be ruled by the will of God.” Her words curl into a sneer but her eyes, her eyes grant a silent pity.

The gate slams in front of her.

There. Her answer. 

She is still falling.

Yet she walks to the edge of the wood and gazes at the town, at the Tower and returns to her hut. The jars of spices sit on the table, the velvet pouch of precious salt. The Queen has left her flute behind, a dark wood inlayed with a twisting silver. The birdcatcher holds it, her lips to the embouchure. Her tune is weak, full of squeaks and whistles, but slowly the tears come and sorrow makes the song grow rich. 

She sleeps.

In her dreams, she is always alone, lost in a vast darkness, surrounded by a whirlwind.

She stumbles through her days.

However, it is a sennight, after the birdcatcher returns from a foraging that she finds a letter on her table. Absently she heeds the hoof marks on the ground by the copse and wonders how the Abbess had found her.

Her hand trembles as she opens the missive.

_Dearest_

She runs into the forest. Falling to her knees, she heaves up her meal.  


It is then that her Queen comes to her in the sweetest dreams, lips of crimson that trace down her spine, hands that stroke down her back, between her thighs. She wakes, in a torrent of madness, her body, chasing the dream of her, finger deep inside but she clutches at nothing, that stabbing ache, empty and unfulfilled. She touches herself but every peak leaves her hollow. She grinds her hips into the bed, willing her to appear, to embrace this body which she has awoken. She curses God, all devils and angels, and finally, herself; she does not want to live in this world, and yet she cannot find it in herself to leave it.

The Queen has released her. This is the cruelest freedom.

She does not see the turning of the leaves, the fade into crimson, the orange blush of leaves. The world is grey. Food has no savour. She buries the spices in the floor of the hut. The velvet pouch she tucks in her sachel. One last brace of rabbits she leaves on the stone slab for the wolves. The flute she will take.

Before she turns on the road to Carcassone, she stops by the foot of the Tower and takes out the instrument. The birdcatcher places it on her lips and draws out a song. It is an old tune, from troubadours of centuries past, of love lost, so long ago. 

Her tears fall, a farewell. Those lovers, do they still weep? 

The wolves from the forest hear her and they howl.


	10. The Sparrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trust in me, Reader. We will take the road together.

The stars, the birdcatcher thinks, like the field of flowers, the meadow in springtime.

Her feet shuffle on the road to Carcassone. She has been walking far after sunset, the pain in her legs, a constant. It is a comfort. Let her walk for days, until she bleeds dry, her limbs grinding into bloody stumps. Let her body wear away, her sight fade into these pinpricks of light. She has become ceaseless motion, her thoughts floating, unbound, into ether. Let her forget in this cloud of darkness, let her forget….

Her foot hooks and she tumbles.

She wakes in the back of a wagon draped with colourful cloth, the uneven road tossing her from side to side. A harsh, midday light streams through the gap in the coarse linen. She grabs at her satchel, at the knife in her belt, the flute tucked into her vest. All is safe. With a glance she notes that her feet have been wrapped with wet rags and she lies on a throw of straw.

“You are amongst friends,” a voice comes from behind her.

The very thought puzzles her as she rocks back into sleep.

 

They are a small troupe of travelling players, a group of six, bound to Paris in their motley pageant wagon. Daniel laughs, as he says “The plague drove us out of Marseilles and the Bishop from Montpellier!” He is a dark-haired boy, a jongleur by trade, the friendly voice in the wagon. He asks where the birdcatcher is heading, but he shakes his head at Carcassone. “They are expelling the Jews in Carcassone, no, best not to go there. Come to Paris with us! And why Carcassone of all places?”

The birdcatcher clears her throat. “I like the sound of the name.” Her father had mentioned it in a story, once upon a time.

Daniel laughs again. “You are a funny one, little sparrow.”

Yes, she is a little sparrow, drab and common, and so she takes the name.

They take the old roman road with the Sparrow sitting on the back of the wagon. She plays her flute, the song growing truer, her feet slowly on the mend. They do not ask about the tune. The Sparrow, she is a quiet one, but her song will break your heart.

 

They travel through towns. A village, emptied from plague. At one crossroads, they see the ashes of a bonfire, and sickened, the Sparrow turns from the charred remains. What world is this? What madness? As she looks out from the wagon, she asks herself how can she measure her own misfortune against pestilence, against famine? She is a child weeping for the moon. And so she hardens her heart. She will make her body cold. She clings to pain, lashes it against her so that her skin will thicken; she tastes her anger, devours it, feels it race in her blood, and curdle in her bones.

No, the Queen does not love her. 

And the Sparrow will never forgive her. She will eat ashes and be newly born. 

 

It is in the city of Orleans that they gain the attention of the Seigneur. It is the song of Sparrow that makes his Lady weep. At the end of the night, the Lady slips them a letter of introduction to the court in Paris, for their winter interlude.

 

Paris! The river merchants with their small boats rowing up the Seine, the bridges chocked with tiny houses, windows draped with dyed fabrics and woven tapestries at Pont-Neuf, the bulging wares of fripiers. The streets themselves teem with people, pigs and sheep driven to the abattoirs, the plodding shuffle of cows. Markets at every turn, tables spread with vegetables, cheese, the cages of bristling chickens. Street merchants shouting, carrying their baskets from door to door. And oh, the streets, with houses, two, three, four stories high, and tiny labyrinthine passages that criss-cross the city. What a city! The Cathedral, the University and oh the stench! The Monasteries, the Abbeys and the Basilicas! Oh the pomp and the glory and the beggars beseeching alms. All this is Paris and more.

At the court, they are to appear before the Dauphine of France for the winter feast. Before the song, Daniel finds the Sparrow, sitting behind a tapestry.

She holds an orange in her hand.

“Come, they are waiting,” he pulls at her impatiently.

She staggers before the court.

It is the night of the first snow, white and crystalline, the frost that edges the last of the summer bloom that kisses them in death. The flute draws down the heavens, that cold indifference, the years that will pass, the losses and lament. The song is autumnal, in winter’s embrace, the ice that crackles on the river, the shroud that covers all; it sings of the love that will never live, the youth that pines, the fruit that withers on the vine.

When the Sparrow bows, there is silence. 

There may be thunder in the court, the stamping of feet, the clapping of hands but in her heart there is silence.

Later, in the night there comes the request from the Dauphine of France that they winter in the palace.

 

In springtime, there is an odd stirring. A letter comes to the Sparrow’s door. Her fame has spread across the land so the letter… but her heart stops at the script.

It is the Queen’s hand.

_Dearest_

With one motion she tears the letter in two. No, she will not come back. She will not. She will not. That is the end of it.

It is a month later that she finds herself in the taverns with Daniel, a cup in her hand. The wine is in her blood and she speaks freely, standing, her voice booming across the tables. A guardsman is there, drinking with his fellows.

“You are not from the north?” he asks.

“No.” She knows her tongue betrays her and so she tells him. The name of the town tumbles from her lips.

The guardsman raises his cup. “Then a toast to your new Queen!” he bellows.

She swings her cup but stops. Surely she has misheard, the drink has thickened her mind. “New Queen? But the King and…”

The guardsman’s cup hovers, as if suddenly sober. “The plague. It came quickly….”

The birdcatcher sits. The world seems muffled, so far away. Blindly she fumbles to the pocket of her vest. There she finds it, the strands of golden hair, taken so long ago.


	11. The Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Reader, we are still in the forest dark. I still have your hand.

“Ask me things. Please.” To be known. To be loved. There is a hunger in these things. There is a price. The Queen knows this. Yet she cannot resist.

When had it begun? When she had first sighted the birdcatcher in her spyglass, there by the edge of the forest? No, it had been in the King’s orchard, as she had pilfered his apples. The Queen had laughed, watching this orchard thief. Yes, it had begun as a question, a curiosity and yes, she had thought it an amusement, an idle consideration. But when the birdcatcher had stood before her in the vestibule, the world had shifted. Such a slight thing, to wrench the planets out of orbit, to claw down all the heavens into this earthly realm.

Had the Queen felt it? She had trembled. Yet she had offered her hand.

She had reached for her. That small, strange creature. For surely there was no harm in it. What consequence could there be? She was the monarch of the land. Surely she had paid a high enough price already: a childhood of discipline, poise and perfection, rules of conduct and regal detachment, and then ultimately her marriage to a stranger, her own daughter torn away, her years and years of loneliness.

She remained unknown, even to herself.

Then she had stood in front of this disheveled, half-wild commoner with her ridiculous mask and she had risked it all.

Why?

In this prison, she asks herself this. She knows now that she will never leave this Tower.

How the King had railed at his cuckoldry, a dead bird in one hand and the Queen’s message in the other. At least she had learned that her birdcatcher was safe. That she had been wise to leave the forest, so that his suspicions had run elsewhere. That is her one comfort.

She will allow herself that.

She writes the letter to release the birdcatcher, to let her fly into the world without her. She is young. The heart will be forgiving. She will live unfettered by the laws of men and one day find another who can love her as she deserves.

But it will not be her.  
Bitter, bitter.

 

In her Tower, the Queen’s table is set with the luxuries of her station, fine wine from the Beaune estates, filleted eels from the Jutland bathed in an Italianate roux. She craves a simple rabbit stew and cool cider. She remembers setting her gifts before her birdcatcher, those precious spices, how in that moment she had longed to spread out all the treasures of the world at her feet, gifts of figs and aubergine, honeyed almonds, candied ginger, and marzipan from the Moorish coast. She had laughed and she had hungered, her hands spreading open her birdcatcher’s thighs.

Oh, how she had feasted. And now, those memories are measured out in sprinkles, like precious saffron, to give her days flavour, to give her days salt.

The birdcatcher’s skin, softer than the most precious silk.

She remembers how they had lain, her hand caressing the small of the birdcatcher’s back. The Queen was still wet with her, how she had squeezed her thighs together, as if to hold the imprint of her fingers, as if to possess her forever. The fire had died low and the flames had cast an amber glow against her round bottom. The Queen could not stop stroking those curves.

“Now I know why this is forbidden,” the birdcatcher had mumbled.

“Why?” the Queen asked with a smile. Such a mind, quicksilver thoughts.

The birdcatcher turned, her lips taking in the Queen’s nipple against her gasp. “Because with this,” she sucked, “we would need no Kings, no clergy, this would be heaven enough.” Her fingers slid deep and the Queen had been taken again.

Her body had hungered and now she would starve.

 

From the Tower, she sees the forest blush red, bloom orange in autumnal splendor. Then one starry eve, she hears a distant melody, a farewell. Her heart breaks at the sound. She weeps, knowing that the final gift she has bequeathed to her birdcatcher is sorrow. A poison cup. What use is she in the world, what use at all?

The cold, hard part of her asks if could have ended any other way.

She does not eat. The King sets her table with pheasant, with boar. Troubled, he sends for the Abbess at the first snow fall.

The Abbess is shocked at the Queen’s transformation. There is no light in her eyes and her hair falls without luster. Her strength is brittle. A tremor in the hand that grasps the cup.

“I do not think I can endure much more, Abbess,” she whispers. She does not speak of the lure of the window. 

Briskly, the Abbess pulls at her wimple, her eyes sharp. She brings news of a musician at the Paris court who wields a flute inlayed with a twisting silver.

“Paris,” the Queen says with longing, with pride. Her brave little one.

The Abbess places a comforting hand on her shoulder before she goes. “It changes.” She, of all, would be the one to know.

 

The Queen drinks, her days numbed by wine but her dreams betray her. Her birdcatcher, there in the wood, her laughter in the thicket, running ahead of her in the meadow. The Queen chases, always one step behind, as she reaches to pull at her tunic, to grasp at the hem but her birdcatcher flies ahead, eluding the Queen, who is forever in pursuit.

Winter blankets the land, white and cold. She wants to sleep forever.

It is in the turn of the season that she finds a tawny bird on her window sill. She feeds it seeds scattered in her bread. It flies, only to return, a warbling song. A sparrow. Watchful eyes.

One day the sparrow returns with an apple blossom and the Queen hurls a cup, the wine staining the sill. Her orchard thief. She thinks of the birdcatcher with the apples. Was that the first sight of her?

No, this is enough.

This Tower is a cold, slow death. Better to fly. She walks to the window: green, the budding forest, the old emerald of pine. She calls for the Abbess. For a letter. If the birdcatcher will have her, they will steal away, a wagon, the river, there must be ways. She will risk, she will reach for her again. 

If the birdcatcher will have her.

The Queen and the Abbess laugh. A preposterous plan, to masquerade under a nun’s habit. They are giddy with hope, the Abbess, with relief. Oh, she will hope, with open heart, her arms, she will love, yes she will love completely with all the depth of her being. She will fly with her birdcatcher and all tomorrows will be theirs.

But all plans come to naught, for below them, in the King’s kitchen, the Stewart coughs. His fever is high as he sweats by the fire.

The plague has come to the castle.


	12. The Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As so it ends. Thank you all for coming on this journey with me.

The birdcatcher walks through the meadow, leading her horse by the reins. The day is grey with springtime drizzle. It has taken her two weeks to return to her forest and in that time she has not spoken to a single soul. The crossroads have been desolate; the fields lie fallow with so few to work the land. In the cities it has been no better, the gates barred against the contagion, stacks of bodies, piled like woodfall to be thrown in unmarked ditches outside the stone walls. Death, the rotting stink of death.

Her Queen. The birdcatcher carries an orange, to place upon her gravestone. Her vision blurs and angrily she wipes her eyes. There will be enough tears when she reaches the end of her journey. 

She blinks.

The meadow. This is the meadow where she had waited, where two riders had come, one in red and one in black. This is the meadow where they had lain, the sun kissing their skin after their tumble in the river. 

She slaps the reins against her legs and the horse shies, skittish. Gently she pats its nose and envies its lumbering innocence.

Why had she let her go? Why had they not fled? They could have disappeared into the forest, or taken the road to the west. They could have run to the coast and sailed to the eastern countries, to Byzantium and beyond. 

Why had she not returned when she received the letter? Did the Queen wait in the Tower for an answer that would never come? Did she despair until the plague took her? Did she know how hard-hearted the birdcatcher had become?

The birdcatcher stumbles. No, she deserves this torment. Lurking, underneath it all, the most terrible question: had the birdcatcher returned with the letter, would the Queen have lived?

Did she die alone, unloved? Surely the Abbess had been with her. There is comfort in that thought, is there not?  


Had she known that the birdcatcher loved her?

The birdcatcher groans.

Oh, she has loved her, has never stopped loving her. From the very first moment in the vestibule, her laughter in the river, the surrender of her gown, golden hair in firelight and flashing eyes. She remembers, no, she has never forgotten. She has loved her, utterly and completely, she loves and has lost.

No, she loves and she had thrown that love away. That is the true cruelty of it. 

Blindly she walks and finds herself close to her hut. The twisting vine has started to bud. She ties her horse to a tree in the copse, her hands fumbling with the reins. As she opens the door, she braces herself for the winter’s destruction, the pillage of wind, the buffet of the storm.

Yet when she opens the door she sees a brightly lit hearth, rushlights on the mantle. A burgundy cloak drapes over the bed. Her Queen at the table.

She stands in a simple gown and all the light in the world sparkles in her eyes. Her hair holds sunlight, shades of the waxing moon.

How still the air of the wood, as they gaze, unbelieving.

The birdcatcher drops to her knees and the Queen is there to catch her, her hand stroking back her rumpled hair. Tears, fumbling words, as the birdcatcher desperately clutches, to know solid flesh, to settle a top-spun world.

“My angel,” the Queen whispers, her fingers running through her beloved’s hair, “my angel.”

 

They lie in the bed, the stillness all around them and the birdcatcher cannot stop staring, will not let go of her hand. The Queen feeds her bread dipped in broth, and tea steeped with rosebuds. Her eyes are bright with tears that do not fall. Gingerly they lie with their old hurts between them. Their stories quietly spill out: how the birdcatcher had thought the Queen dead. As the pestilence raged, the Queen had tended the sick in the Abbey, the King among them, and so he had forgiven her. Their daughter now sits on the throne, with the Abbess as council. They visit, every fortnight.

“Here?” the birdcatcher asks, surprised.

“Yes,” the Queen explains. The court is no place for her, not after imprisonment in the Tower. 

The birdcatcher flinches and looks away. “Forgive me,” she whispers.

“Why?” the Queen cries, taking her face in her hands, “The fault is not yours.” Such a young one who takes on the burdens of the world. It is a strange pride and she does not fully understand it, the resilience of an orphaned child; but the Queen vows to learn. She kisses for her own absolution and feels a shiver beneath her touch. She pulls off the birdcatcher’s tunic and sheds her gown, as if her skin is a balm to sooth the torments, her caress to comfort, her tears to wash away all harms. Yet even as the birdcatcher crosses her arms and turns away, the moment too much, for she is unworthy, for all the old wounds that cut too deep, the Queen will gently open, she will offer her naked self, a surrender, which is also the greatest victory.

“I love you.”

Ah love, that is fear and terror, the birdcatcher knows this now. The world that is cruel and unkind has taught her much. Yet she will leap. She holds the Queen to her, her lips searching, her palms cupping the plentitude of breasts, soft opening thighs. To give love and to receive love – that is a falling. Her mouth pulls nipples against a flickering tongue and her hand strokes down into wetness. Ah love, that is hunger, a joy taken like daily bread, the small discoveries, a sigh as the birdcatcher slips, finger deep, then two, the rock of hips against that motion. The Queen’s cry as the pleasure takes her, their tears, a clasp that the world cannot pull asunder, they will build it, this love and discover in themselves, in days and months and years. She will leap and the Queen will catch her, over and over, and they will fly together in this forest, where the birds sing the sweetest.


End file.
